The Beano is a British children's comic

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

, published by D.C. Thomson & Co

D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd

D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, is a publishing company based in Dundee, Scotland, best known for producing The Dundee Courier, The Evening Telegraph, The Sunday Post, Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy and Commando comics...

 and is arguably their most successful.

The comic first appeared on 30 July 1938, and was published weekly. During the Second World War,The Beano and The Dandy

The Dandy

The Dandy is a long running children's comic published in the United Kingdom by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. The first issue was printed in 1937 and it is the world's third longest running comic, after Detective Comics and Il Giornalino...

 were published on alternating weeks because of paper and ink rationing

Rationing

Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...

. D. C. Thomson's other publications also suffered, with the Oor Wullie

Oor Wullie

Oor Wullie is a Scottish comic strip published in the D.C. Thomson newspaper, The Sunday Post. It features a boy named William, known as Wullie . His trademarks are spiky hair, dungarees and an upturned bucket, which he often uses as a seat...

 and The Broons

The Broons

The Broons is a comic strip in Scots published in the weekly Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Post. It features the Broon family, who live in a tenement flat at 10 Glebe Street, in the fictional Scottish town of Auchentogle or Auchenshoogle . They are also shown as living on Glebe Street...

 annuals falling victim to paper and ink shortages.